Cybergolf ran my U.S. Open piece where I got to talk with Tom Watson, Jack Fleck, and a real-life Signboy. From the article:
“Speaking of fairways and greens, NoCal and underdogs, my next interview was a stunner, a bolt from the blue. As I strode towards the media center exit, notebook in hand intent on finding a Garcia, Curtis or Paddy, an elderly gentleman in a tam o’shanter and windbreaker greeted me with a hearty hello and a handshake. Just as a matter of reflex, I looked at his badge to get his name.
“Jack Fleck” it read.
For those of you who couldn’t pick Jack Fleck out of a line-up of Duke Ellington’s orchestra, he’s the guy who snatched the 1955 U.S. Open from Ben Hogan. Back then, they played 36 holes on Saturday. Hogan had strode off the 18th green at San Francisco’s Olympic Club thinking he’d just won his record fifth U.S. Open, and everyone else thought he had won too. He even handed his ball to the head of the USGA. Museum saying, “Here, this is for Golf House.”
Hogan was sitting with a few journalists – his buddy Dan Jenkins included – talking about his victory when someone chirped up that one man was left out on the course who could still tie Hogan. He needed two birdies over the tough last four holes to do it.
Hogan asked him who it was, and the journalist replied, “Jack Fleck.”
Hogan looked thoughtfully for a second, and then said, “Well, I hope he makes three birdies or one. I don’t want a playoff.”
Hogan didn’t get his wish or his record fifth Open title. Fleck made two birdies, including a heart-pounding closer on 18, posted a 67 for an aggregate of 287 (7-over), and then held off a late charge by Hogan to win the Sunday playoff.
And here’s the great man, the oldest living major champion of golf (89 in November), who politely asked me out-of-the-blue if I had time to chat with him. I felt like Zeus had just called me up for a tour of Olympus and then casually told me that Neptune was packing it in and would I like the job?”
Anyway, somebody named Wheatcroft is winning the Open…and somewhere Michael Campbell and Steve Jones are rooting for him.
